Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the charges to be introduced by the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging will apply only to packaging that enters the consumer waste system.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (pEPR), producers will pay for the waste management costs associated with the packaging that they place on the market that ends up in households or street bins managed by local authorities. Charges for the management of this waste will apply to all primary and shipment packaging except where producers can evidence that their packaging has been emptied and discarded by a business. This will ensure producers are thinking about the necessity of any packaging they use and the impact of that packaging once it ends up with the end consumer.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans she has to create public access available to all through Environmental Land Management.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Protecting our environment is at the heart of the Government manifesto and we will always back British farmers and our rural communities. Environmental land manage-ment is the foundation of our new approach.
We want to support access to our countryside, farmland or woodland so the public can understand and become engaged with farming and the environment. It can also provide recreation opportunities and health benefits. Under Countryside Stewardship we already pay for a number of actions focusing on increasing public access:
• farmers hosting tours of their farms for school pupils and care farming visi-tors (ED1)
• providing access maps and signage, and preparing sites for access by providing toilet facilities, shelters, new footpaths, bridges and gates, with the objective of greater public accessibility of the countryside (AC1)
• accreditation for staff carrying out countryside educational access visits (AC2)
• a supplement to enable permissive access across woodland, where access is currently limited (WS4)
Through our Farming in Protected Landscapes programme we also pay for projects that provide opportunities for people to discover, enjoy and understand the landscape and its cultural heritage, including permissive access.
As we continue to expand and improve our schemes, building on the successful adoption of Countryside Stewardship, we are exploring how we can update and pay for actions covering permissive access; managing existing access pressures on land and water, and; expanding education access beyond groups of school pupils and care farming visitors.
Public access is also supported by our Landscape Recovery scheme. Projects are assessed for the benefits they will deliver for a wide range of objectives including social outcomes, and are required to complete a site access plan as part of the project development phase.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of seasonality in the plant and tree growing industry on (a) testing and (b) assuring the quality of peat-free growing media.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Government recognises that some sectors within the horticulture industry are encountering challenges in transitioning to peat-free growing media. We have consulted and collected evidence to improve our understanding of these challenges, including seasonality, asking for views about potential exemptions to support the transition. That is why we intend to provide time limited exemptions for those parts of the sector for whom the transition is particularly difficult.
Government also recognises that the quality of peat free growing mixes can be variable. We are in discussions with industry representatives to explore opportunities for developing a minimum standard that will support the industry in making informed buying choices. The prospect of regulation will provide the certainty to the industry to continue this work and realise the associated market opportunities.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Government has undertaken an assessment of the cost of (a) maintaining and (b) improving the resilience of the Canal and River Trust’s waterway network to safeguard public safety in response to climate change.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Defra provides the Canal and River Trust with an annual grant of £52 million, under a 15-year agreement signed when the Trust was established in 2012. The grant may be used for the Trust’s charitable objects and the permitted activities set out in the formal Grant Agreement document, which is published on the Government website. This includes maintenance of the canal network infrastructure. Around £10 million of the annual grant is conditional on the Trust meeting key performance indicators covering waterway safety, improvement of towpath condition, and flood defence and mitigation. The Trust’s waterways maintenance expenditure is available in their Annual Report and Accounts, which is published on the Trust’s website.
Climate change impact is being considered as part of Defra’s current review of the Government grant required by the Grant Agreement, to inform a decision about any future funding for the Trust from 2027.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking with (a) the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (b) Natural England to help resolve the water quality issues caused by phosphates in the Somerset Levels and Moors so that residential applications in that area can proceed.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The departments principally responsible for government policy on water pollution and development are Defra and DLUHC respectively, which are both aware of the challenges facing housebuilding and environmental protection in the Somerset Levels and Moors. To address water quality issues arising from nutrient pollution, a cross-departmental Nutrient Taskforce has been created, which brings together Defra, Natural England, Environment Agency and DLUHC colleagues. Its remit is to discuss the causes of phosphate and wider nutrient pollution and ways we can support businesses to develop and protect the environment nationally.
Locally, the taskforce has assisted Natural England in developing several tools which enable local authorities to understand possible mitigations that can be put in place. In the Somerset Levels and Moors, this has materialised in the development of a phosphorus budget calculator which has helped to move forward planning applications. Furthermore, Somerset West & Taunton Council have approved a further £2M programme for interim mitigation projects as advised by Natural England. The Council will now seek NE sign-off in the next few weeks, after which it can begin to employ mitigation schemes to unlock delayed development in the area. Alongside this Natural England continues to support the piloting of a first-of-its-kind nutrient trading scheme in Somerset and expects to formally accredit the scheme in November. They report back regularly to the taskforce on progress.
More broadly, the taskforce has helped to inform and guide Defra’s wider approach to address nutrient pollution in our waterways. For example, how we utilise the newly expanded Catchment Sensitive Farming advice programme, which we have doubled funding for, alongside funding for 50 new Environment Agency inspectors to work with the farming sector to tackle nutrient pollution. Defra is committed to improving the water environment and will continue to work with Natural England and the Environment Agency on the wider issue of underlying sources of pollution, considering upgrades to wastewater treatment works and ways of reducing pollution from agriculture.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to use AgriTech innovation to open up new export markets for British agricultural businesses.
Answered by Victoria Prentis
Defra is investing in the development of new technologies that will enhance the UK's international standing as a global leader on agri-tech innovation. We are working closely with the Department for International Trade (DIT) to provide support to UK Agri-Tech companies looking to expand into new markets, in partnership with the DIT's overseas network.